NYC Surprise

In the middle of August, being unemployed as I was, I decided to have a weekend visit to New York City to surprise my sister. With the help of Sarah, my sister's roommate, I was able to ambush my sister on the streets of NYC just a few blocks from Grand Central Station. We quickly finished out that day's activities with a tour of the subway tunnels by Alyson, trip to the Barney's Warehouse Sale, excellent cheap Italian food with Sarah, & dancing and drinks at Automatic Slims (shout-out to the DJ!).

After a late Friday night, we slept in Saturday morning. Then recounted the events of the evening as we walked to a favorite of Alyson's for lunch, Pop Burger. You get two mini burgers with special sauce. I think the special sauce did just the trick for our hangovers! We enjoyed walking on the High Line until it started raining. We tried to go to a movie, but that's what everyone in the city does when it's raining on the weekend. We had to go home and buy tickets to a later showing. I'll start by saying Sunday was shopping day. We had breakfast at a diner and yes we sat at the counter on my request. I like a show to watch with my meal. Then headed to Lord and Taylor (my favorite department store) where we stayed for the next two and a half hours. Afterwards we made our way to SoHo. We had tea that afternoon. Alyson had boozy tea! We headed over to McSorley's Old Ale House afterwards. You only have one choice of beverage: BEER! You can order either dark or light. We ordered light, but it was still on the darker side. When you order, you get two little mugs of beer. It has a stand-up bar with saw dust on the floor. They have posters and articles on the walls that go back as far as Abraham Lincoln's assassination reward poster! I saw it! McSorley's Old Ale House was opened in 1854 and is New York's oldest continuously operated salon (http://www.mcsorleysnewyork.com/home.html). The bar has only minimally changed since it opened. The only change was because they had to add a women's bathroom. Women weren't allowed in until 1970. I really liked this place. I'm sure I'll go back there on another trip! We had dinner at Bar Pitti that night and spotted Famke Janssen (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000463/).

Alyson had to work on Monday. We had breakfast together (another fantastic meal) and then I went back to her apartment in the West Village and napped. I met Alyson for lunch and afterwards met up with my friend Jamie. Jamie and I worked in Hawaii together. He now works in New Haven CT at Yale Hospital. He was in the city for a few days to visit a friend. We all told stories over a couple of beers and of course Jamie had to introduce me to a new piece of cuisine.

We had takoyaki, better known as octopus balls. It's like a fried dumpling with boiled octopus inside, it has a few different sauces on the outside, one being mayo and fish shavings or fish flakes as I liked to call them on top. I only wanted to take a bite, but Jamie insisted that I had to eat a whole one at once. And it's a good thing I did because the inside was very creamy. All in all it wasn't bad. I could eat another one. Just don't think I could eat all six in one sitting, very filling.

Jamie enjoyed two servings of octopus balls, for those of you not paying attention that's 11 balls, minus the one I ate.

Jamie is half Japanese...so he was giving us his best Japanese tourist impression. Pretty good in my opinion!

I left the boys in the East Village and headed up to Madison Square Garden to meet sister for dinner. And then we went to Britney's Circus concert. We sat in a press box. Brit is back, but she doesn't dance as much as she used to. We had a great time!

Alyson escorted me to Grand Central Station and onto the bus Tuesday morning and I was on my way back to Dallas.